Mission Endure 68: Winter Lettuce Garden Update
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for.
Since November 1 I have been posting updates to our winter lettuce garden every 2 weeks. We have a nice little garden going this winter. We actually have lettuce planted in three different stages of production right now.
On October 1 we planted 16 seeds of Parris Island Cos Romaine lettuce, 4 seeds in each 1 gallon container. All 16 heads germinated and have been very productive. We started harvesting it around November 1 and we have been harvesting it twice a week ever since. This has become my favorite lettuce. It is only now starting to show signs of starting to bolt. We will be able to take a few more harvests off of the cut-and-come-again romaine, but it will probably start to get a bit bitter and lose its taste over the next couple of weeks. This has been an incredible lettuce. As you can see in the photo below, Growing Parris Island Cos under grow lights produces a wonderfully colorful and very vigorous growing lettuce. It is very tasty also. When we go to the store and compare our Parris Island Cos to bagged or even fresh romaine we are always amazed at how green, crisp, and long lasting our winter lettuce is. Nothing beats picking it in the afternoon, putting it in the refrigerator to let it chill for a bit, and then eating a salad of your home grown lettuce for dinner. It doesn’t get any fresher than that. Here is how our Paris Island Cos looks today
As of yesterday, each of the plants is about 22 inches tall and you can see where we have been harvesting the most mature leaves from the stalk. This lettuce works very well for cut-and-come-again harvesting.
About a month later, on November 1 we planted round two of our lettuce. We thought we would plant a few more varieties in an experiment to see what we like the best. In this round we planted more Parris Island Cos, along with Flashy Butter Gem, May Queen Butterhead, and Black Seeded Simpson. They are all growing incredibly well. We planted 4 seeds in each container and we have 1 container for each variety. They are all very different types of lettuce. The Parris Island Cos is very dark green and crisp, the other three are a lighter shade of green and are very soft and delicate. The Flashy Butter Gem is very colorful with the purple highlights and the green leaves. But, they all taste wonderful. Here is what they look like today after we harvested them for the first time yesterday. Flashy Butter Gem is in the front left, Parris Island Cos is back left, May Queen Butterhead is front right, and Black Seeded Simpson is back right.
Below is what we harvested yesterday. These plants are 1 month old and you can see from the above photo that they don’t look like they have been harvested at all even though I removed all the lettuce shown below. We had never used cut-and-come-again harvesting until last year. Basically, instead of harvesting an entire head of lettuce, you only do a continual thinning out of the most mature leaves. It opens up more space for new leaves to grow and provides you with a continual harvest instead of a one-time harvest of the entire head. We have been harvesting two 1 gallon Ziplock bags of lettuce twice a week for the last 2 months. This is enough to keep our family in fresh, home grown lettuce so far.
Two weeks ago I started another experiment. We have a 4 shelf unit at out office and I thought I might just as well fill it up with winter gardening experimental plantings. In the latest experiment I planted another round of our 4 types of lettuce along with Roma Tomatoes, Ozark Giant Sweet Peppers, Craig’s Sweet Peppers, Jalapenos, Cilantro, and Basil. Below is what they looked like yesterday at the 2 week point.
The Jalepenos are the only planting that hasn’t germinated yet, and I think it is because they like it a little warmer than I keep our office. All else is going well, not as fast as the lettuce above, but they are growing.
I will keep on experimenting and post another update in two weeks.